Deal With It

by Monica McKayhan

  “Do you ever, you know, wanna holler at other girls?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean, now that I’m on punishment, do you think about hooking up with somebody who’s not on punishment?”

  “Indi, that’s silly. You won’t be on punishment forever,” he said.

  “I know, but you might get bored with our relationship not going anywhere,” I said, my eyes now looking right into his. “And I know girls who literally throw themselves at ballplayers.”

  “I’m a different kind of brother,” he explained. “You know that.”

  “What about that girl, Raina, that you met in Houston last summer?” I asked.

  “Her name was Rena,” he said, correcting me. “And if you remember correctly, that whole pact idea was yours. ‘Marcus, let’s break up for the summer. That way if we meet somebody else, we can hook up with them…no pressure. Blah, blah, blah.’ That was your idea, not mine.”

  “Tell me again, Marcus. Did you sleep with her?”

  “Of course not, Indi. Now we said that we wouldn’t talk about that stuff anymore,” he said. “It’s just me and you, remember?”

  “I know, but this whole punishment thing’s got me trippin’,” I explained.

  “Then do the right thing, Indi. And I’m sure you know what that is,” he said. “And as for me, I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care if you’re on punishment for the rest of the school year. I’ll be here waiting to spend the summer with you.”

  His smile was so beautiful. It was his best physical attribute, but there was so much more to Marcus than the physical. He was sweet. Sometimes I wondered if I really deserved him.

  “Thank you, Marcus,” I whispered and kissed his lips.

  “You won’t be grounded forever, Indi. Just quit being a wimp about it.” He smiled.

  “I’m not being a wimp.”

  “Yes, you are. But you’re a girl, so it’s okay,” he said. “Now come on, girl. Let’s get you back in the house before the warden sends out the dogs.”

  He grabbed my hand and led the way back to the front of my house.

  “You go on ahead. I have to do this like Rambo or 007. I need some time,” I told him.

  “Cool.” He kissed my forehead. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, sad to see him go. I shivered as I watched him stroll to the front of his house, go up the stairs and cross his front porch.

  He vanished, and I stood on the side of my house, my back against the wall as my heart pounded again. I crept up the front stairs and onto the porch. I turned the doorknob, oh, so carefully. The door creaked again as I entered the foyer in my house. Creeping up the stairs again, I stood still when I heard a noise. It was just Daddy’s snoring again. I crept past my parents’ room and slipped into my room. Pulled my coat and slippers off, hopped into bed. My heart was still pounding.

  It had been dangerous, but well worth it.

  twenty-five

  Tameka

  Cramped in the small bathroom, with the door locked, the three of us stood awaiting the results of my pregnancy test. My heart pounded as a faint little plus sign appeared on the stick. It was positive. According to the stolen pregnancy test, I was definitely pregnant. The three of us stared at each other in disbelief.

  “How accurate are these things?” I asked. Something had to be wrong, I thought.

  “They’re, like, ninety-nine point nine percent accurate,” Roni said.

  “Oh my God, Tameka. What are you gonna do?” Alyssa asked.

  I sat on the toilet with the lid down. “I don’t know. I guess I was expecting it to be negative. I hadn’t really thought past that part.”

  “I thought you and Vance used protection,” Alyssa said.

  “We did.” I was a little dazed and suddenly felt sick. “I swear we did.”

  “Condoms aren’t a one hundred percent guarantee, you know. You can still get pregnant even when you use them.” Roni acted as if she was an expert on the matter. “The best way to prevent pregnancy and HIV is to not do it at all.”

  “Yeah, but the percentage is, like, ninety-nine percent,” I argued.

  “But it’s not a hundred. And that one percent is what got you messed up.” Roni shrugged. “I guess you better start saving your allowance for Pampers and formula.”

  “Not funny.” I couldn’t breathe. “I need some air.” I opened the small bathroom window.

  “Will you keep it, Tameka?” Alyssa asked.

  “I don’t know.” I covered my face with the palms of my hands. My mind raced a million miles a minute. Thousands of thoughts, but none of them made sense.

  I jumped when someone pounded on the door.

  “I gotta use it!” Nick whined. “Let me pee!”

  Roni scrambled to collect our evidence, the pregnancy test paraphernalia. She placed everything into a brown paper bag and stuffed the bag into the pocket of her hoodie. Once everything was cleaned up, she said, “Open the door.”

  Alyssa opened the door, and the three of us stepped out into the hallway. Nick rushed past us and slammed the door behind him. We made a beeline for the pink room, where I plopped down on the bed. Tears streamed down the sides of my face. My cousins sat down on each side of me; they cried, too. That was all we knew to do at that moment.

  “Don’t cry,” Alyssa said. “We’ll come up with something.”

  “Something like what?” I asked. “You got a magic wand somewhere? Can you reverse the results of that pregnancy test?”

  Alyssa just shook her head. There was nothing that any of us could do.

  “I had an abortion once,” Roni said.

  Alyssa and I both looked at Roni. Shocked.

  “Really. When?” I asked.

  “A year ago,” Roni said.

  “You were pregnant a year ago, and you never told us!” Alyssa said.

  “I hated the person that I was pregnant by.” Roni looked straight ahead, a strange blank look on her face. “I was pretty much raped.”

  “Who was it?” I asked. “Do you know?”

  Roni sighed. “Remember when I said that now that Grandpa Drew is gone, he can’t protect me anymore? Not from the barracuda lady, and not from Lucifer?”

  “Well, we all know who the barracuda lady is,” I said.

  “But who is Lucifer?” Alyssa asked.

  Roni sat quietly for a moment, a deep frown on her face. “Grant,” she said. “Grant is Lucifer.”

  “I don’t get it,” Alyssa said.

  “Grant raped you, didn’t he?” I asked. I understood it. That was why she hated him so much. I saw it in her eyes at the breakfast table, and every time she spoke his name.

  “He makes me wanna throw up,” Roni mumbled through clenched teeth. “He just does it whenever he wants to.”

  “You mean he’s done it more than once?” I asked.

  “He used to,” Roni said. “Until I finally told Grandpa Drew what was going on.”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He pointed his shotgun right between Grant’s eyes one night and told him that he would blow him to kingdom come if he put one finger on me again.” Tears were streaming down Roni’s face. “But now Grandpa Drew’s gone, and I’m all alone.”

  “You have to tell your mom,” I urged.

  Roni looked at me as if I’d just said the most ridiculous thing in the world.

  “Do you think she doesn’t know?” Roni asked.

  “She knows?” Alyssa asked.

  “Who do you think took me to the abortion clinic?” Roni asked.

  Was she kidding? Aunt Helen knew about all of this? I kept waiting for Roni to say that it was all a lie, that she was just telling one of her sick, twisted jokes.

  “Are you telling me that Aunt Helen knew about this, and she’s still with him?” I had to get a clear understanding of this. It was the most unbelievable thing I’d ever heard. It was absurd.

  “Grandpa Drew told her that
if she didn’t handle this situation, he was gonna handle it for her,” Roni said. “You wanna know how she handled it? She sent me to your house in Atlanta for two weeks. When I came back, nobody ever talked about it again. It was as if it never happened, as if it was just a figment of my imagination. That’s how it was handled.”

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Roni,” I said. “I never really liked Grant in the first place, but I hate him even more now.”

  “You know what he said the night that Grandpa Drew passed away?” Roni asked.

  “What?” Alyssa was on the edge of the bed.

  “‘Who’s gonna protect you now?’ That’s what he asked me,” Roni said.

  “Sick bastard,” I mumbled. I never used that type of language, but I was angry. I wanted to hurt Grant the way he’d hurt my cousin. But I felt helpless. If her own mother wouldn’t help, then who would?

  “We have to do something,” Alyssa said.

  “You can’t tell Uncle Rich or Uncle Paul,” Roni pleaded. “It’ll only make things worse for me here. After you’re all gone, he’ll punish me.”

  “Well, we have to do something, Roni,” I said.

  “You have your own worries,” Roni said. “What are you gonna do about your problem?” She pointed toward my stomach.

  She was right. I did have worries. In the midst of everything, I’d already forgotten about them. But now the reality of my situation slapped me in the face again. I was going to either have an abortion at sixteen or be a mother at sixteen, and either choice was a huge one. Each choice had its consequences. Each choice would change my life forever.

  The three of us held on to each other tightly. We all knew that things would never be the same.

  twenty-six

  Vance

  I stared at the white envelope, and it stared back at me. My mother had slipped it into my room and laid it facedown on my dresser. The return address said Grambling State University. I had applied without my father’s knowledge. In his mind, I didn’t need to apply anywhere but Duke. But my mother knew what I wanted. She knew that I wanted to explore my options and had encouraged me to do just that.

  “Go ahead and apply to other schools,” she’d said. “This is your future. Your father has lived his life.”

  “It’s hard to tell him that, though,” I’d tried to explain.

  “You apply, and if you’re accepted, I’ll handle your father for you,” she’d promised.

  I slipped my finger inside the curve of the envelope, opened it carefully and unfolded the letter.

  “We are pleased to notify you that you have been accepted to Grambling State University….” I read the words softly. “A four-year full scholarship. Room and board…”

  I sat on the edge of my bed. Read through the letter again, until I heard a light tap on the door. Mom stuck her head in.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “Check this out.”

  I handed her the letter, and she took a seat on the bed, next to me. Read it silently.

  “Oh, baby. This is so good.” She smiled. “They’re offering you a free ride.”

  “I know,” I said. “But it’s too bad I can’t take it.”

  “Why can’t you?” she asked. “I told you I would handle your father.”

  “He’s had my life planned for me since I was five. I’m supposed to graduate from Duke on a full scholarship and go on to medical school. Become a dentist like him.”

  “I thought you wanted to go to law school,” she said.

  “I do.”

  “Then that’s where you’ll be going. This is your life, not your father’s.” She kissed my cheek. “Congratulations, son. You did it, and I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Ma.”

  “Now get cleaned up for dinner,” she said. “I’ll talk to your father later.”

  At the dinner table, the conversation was the same as usual. Dad talked about the clients he had serviced during the course of the day, discussed how many teeth he’d pulled, how many root canals he’d performed and how many people’s teeth were the worst he’d ever seen in his life. He had seen so many cavities in his life, it wasn’t even funny. Lori talked about her day at school and how much more money she needed for cheerleading. It seemed the cheerleaders were always asking for money for this and money for that. Dad would just write a check for whatever it was. Mom talked about her latest court case. She was representing a man who’d been accused of murdering his wife. It was intriguing to listen to her courtroom stories. Made me want to be just like her.

  My day had been pretty boring, and so I did not have much to contribute to the dinner conversation. Unable to play basketball because of my injury, I usually sat out at practices and games.

  “Honey, guess what happened to Vance today?” Mom began.

  “What?” Dad asked.

  “He got an acceptance letter from Grambling,” she said. “He got a full ride, a spot on the team…Doesn’t get much better than that.”

  “Really? That’s all right, son.” Dad smiled. “I told you scouts were watching you.”

  “Yep.” I looked at Mom. Wondered where she was going with this conversation.

  “I’m so proud of him. He loves that school,” Mom continued.

  “I’m proud of him, too. Just goes to show what a good ballplayer he is,” Dad said. “Duke will be lucky to have him.”

  “Honey, he’s thinking seriously about Grambling,” Mom said. “That’s where he wants to go.”

  “Babe, we’ve been through this before. He’s not going to Grambling,” Dad said. “They don’t have anything to offer him. Duke is a good undergraduate school, and they have a decent premed program.”

  “That’s another thing,” Mom began. They spoke about me in third person, as if I wasn’t even in the room. “He’s not interested in medical school, baby.”

  “What?” Dad smiled, as if what my mother had said was ludicrous. “Are you kidding? This boy’s been groomed for dentistry since he was a little boy. Look at his hands. He’s got the fingers of a dentist. I bet you he can tell you right now how to perform a root canal. Can’t you, son?”

  “Yes, sir,” I confessed. I had watched my father perform root canals a million times. I knew exactly how to prep a patient. I knew every step, and even though I didn’t have a degree, I knew how to perform a root canal better than any dentist, any day of the week.

  “You see, babe, he’s a doctor at heart.”

  “He really isn’t,” Mom said. “And if you really took the time to listen to your son, you would know that his love is for the law.”

  Dad laughed and then looked my way, as if he expected me to laugh, too. I wasn’t laughing at all.

  “Vance, what is your mother talking about?” he asked.

  “She, uh…well, see…” I stumbled over my words. Why was I so nervous? “I’ve gone to the office with Mom a few times, and to the courtroom, too. Man! The courtroom is just so interesting to me. It’s an awesome place, for real. And seeing Mom work her magic and all…I just can’t even describe it. She’s a genius, Dad. You should see her….”

  He was looking at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  “Man, there’s so much I could do with a law degree. I could be a lawyer. I could go on to be a judge. Wearing that fly robe and bangin’ my gavel and throwing the book at criminals.” Verbalizing my desires to my dad had me excited. “I could become a senator or the United States attorney general.”

  Mom was smiling. Dad looked as if he’d seen a ghost. I was waiting for him to throw something across the table, knock me in the head with it.

  “Wow,” he said softly. “I didn’t know you felt like that.”

  “It’s not that I don’t like dentistry, Dad. I think what you do is cool, but law is really where my heart is.”

  “I can respect that,” Dad said. “I want you to succeed at whatever you decide to do, son.”

  “I think I will do a better job with my studies at a s
chool where I’m comfortable.” I just went for it. “I feel like I would be more successful academically at Grambling than I would at Duke.”

  “That’s not possible, son,” Dad said. “There’s no comparison between the two schools. I attended Duke. Your grandfather attended Duke. All my friends and colleagues are administrators there. You have a sure shot for success.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. All of your college buddies are there. I would never feel like I was succeeding on my own,” I said. “They would be breathing down my neck all the time.”

  “Is that what this is all about? My colleagues breathing down your neck?” He sighed. “You don’t have a clue about what’s best for you.”

  “I really do, Dad. And I’m going to Grambling,” I stated matter-of-factly.

  Silence filled the room. I had taken a risk, stepping out there, standing up to my father for the first time in my life. I knew that he loved me and only wanted what was best for me, but I was standing firm in my decision. He wasn’t having to fork over any cash for my education. Either way, I was getting a free ride, so what difference did it make to him where I spent the next four years of my life? Both Duke and Grambling were good schools, and I wanted Grambling.

  “Is that your final choice?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  I waited for him to send me to my room—take away all my privileges until I came to my senses.

  “Then I guess you’re going to Grambling,” he said.

  He was hurt. It was written all over his face. Disappointment filled his entire being. But what could he say? I would be eighteen in just a few weeks and could make my own decisions.

  “Can I be excused?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Dad said and motioned for me to leave the table.

  I went upstairs to my room, shut the door behind me. I pulled my Grambling State T-shirt out of my drawer, shook it in order to knock the wrinkles out. I pulled it over my head, checked it out in the mirror.

  I looked good in gold and black.